Forever Belle - by Randolph Paul Runyon (Paperback)

About the Book

"Born into a politically connected Kentucky family, Sallie Ward (1827-1896) began her public career as a southern belle who captivated the popular press in Kentucky and throughout the nation. Known for her somewhat scandalous behavior, including obtaining a divorce and smoking cigars, she cut a swathe across the nineteenth century that seems out of proportion to her real circumstances. While Sallie and her frequent travels and adventures are the focus, there is also valuable material on her family, and especially on the murder trial of her brother Matt Ward, in which he was rather deplorably let off by virtue of his connections to the rich and powerful. This study is both an analysis of a unique character in nineteenth-century America and an examination of how celebrity was created and perpetuated before the rise of mass culture"--

Book Synopsis

Forever Belle is the intriguing story of a nineteenth-century socialite, Sallie Ward Lawrence Hunt Armstrong Downs (1827-1896). Beautiful, charming, and kind--but also reckless and bold--she was born in Scott County, Kentucky, to a family of means beset by tragedy--early deaths, suicides, and even murders. Sallie basked in the national spotlight, appearing in newspapers as far-flung as Milwaukee and Charleston, written up for her exploits, which included such scandalous behavior as smoking cigars, dressing in "Turkish pantalets," wearing rouge, and getting divorced.

Such a character invites romanticizing, and in this new biography, Randolph Paul Runyon does much to ground Sallie Ward in reality, fact-checking stories such as her infamous horse ride through the Louisville market house and examining his subject in the context of her wealthy family. Runyon carefully details his subject's life, beginning with her aristocratic origins as the descendant of slaveowners, merchants, and politicians who stole land from Native groups and grew rich off the labor of enslaved people. He accurately covers Sallie's madcap adventures and charitable actions, faithfully representing her legacy as a Kentuckian, a mother, and a grandmother. Illustrated with images of the family, their property, and their lavish grave markers, this volume provides an entertaining and informative glimpse into the world of antebellum privilege in a border state, as well as an examination of the birth of celebrity for its own sake. Forever Belle, finally, is also the story of an early if conflicted feminist: a woman who believed she should have control over her own appearance, actions, political views, and marital status.

About the Author

RANDOLPH PAUL RUNYON is emeritus professor at Miami University of Ohio. He is the author of Ghostly Parallels: Robert Penn Warren and the Lyric Poetic Sequence, Order in Disorder: Intratextual Symmetry in Montaigne's "Essays," and The Assault on Elisha Green: Race and Religion in a Kentucky Community.